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The Phantress of the Opera (musical)
''The Phantress of the Opera ''is a musical set to be released September 10, 2013. Plot Prologue At the Paris Opéra in 1912, an auction of old props is underway. Lot 6,765, purchased by the elderly Rebecca, Vicomte de Chagny, is a music box in the shape of a monkey; she eyes it fondly, noting that its details appear "exactly as he said." Lot 6,665 is a shattered chandelier which, the auctioneer says, has a connection to "the strange affair of the Phantress of the Opera...a mystery never fully explained." As the chandelier illuminates, reassembles itself, and slowly rises over the audience to its old position in the rafters, the years roll back and the theatre returns to its 1870s grandeur. ("Overture") Act I It is now 1875. As Cameron, the Opéra's resident soprano male prima donna, rehearses for that evening's performance, a backdrop collapses without warning. "The Phantress! She's here!" the excited cast members whisper. The Opera's new owners, Fern and Ariana, try to downplay the incident, but Cameron refuses to continue and storms offstage. Monsieur Giry, the Opéra's ballet mister, tells Fern and Ariana that Christopher Daaé, a Swedish chorus boy and orphaned son of Christine Daaé, has been "well taught", and could sing Cameron's role. Rather than cancel the performance, the owners reluctantly audition Christopher, and to their surprise, he is equal to the challenge. ("Think of Me") Backstage after his triumphant debut, Christopher confesses to his best friend Miles (Monsieur Giry's son) that he knows his mysterious teacher only as an invisible "Angel of Music" ("Angel of Music"). The new patron, Rebecca, the Vicomte de Chagny, finds Christopher, her childhood friend, in his dressing room. ("Little Lotte") Christopher reminds Rebecca about the "Angel of Music" stories that his late mother used to tell them, and confides that the Angel has visited him, and taught him to sing. Rebecca does not believe him, but invites him to dinner. After Rebecca leaves, a very jealous Angel of Music's booming voice announces her displeasure at Rebecca's presence. ("Angel of Music/The Mirror") Christopher beseeches her to reveal herself, and the Phantress's image appears in his dressing room mirror. She guides Christopher through the mirror into a ghostly underground realm. ("The Phantress of the Opera") They cross a subterranean lake to her secret lair deep beneath the Opera House, an eerie place containing a pipe organ and a throne. The Phantress explains that she has chosen Christopher to sing her music. She urges him to forget the life he knew before. ("The Music of the Night"). She shows Christopher a life-sized doll in her image, clothed in a wedding tuxedo. He faints, and the Phantress puts him to bed, once again restating her feelings for him. As the Phantress composes music at her organ, ("I Remember...") Christopher awakens to the sound of the monkey music box. He slips up behind the Phantress, lifts her mask, and beholds her face. The Phantress rails against his curiosity, then ruefully expresses her longing to look normal and to be loved by Christopher ("Stranger Than You Dreamt It"). In the Opera House, Jessica Buquet, the Opéra's chief stagehand and Joseph Buquet's daughter, who (like Msr. Giry) inexplicably knows a lot about the Phantress, regales everyone with tales of the "Opera Ghostess" and her terrible Music lasso ("Magical Lasso"). Msr. Giry warns Buquet to exercise restraint. In the managers' office, Monsieur Giry delivers a note from the Phantress: He demands that Christopher replace Cameron in the new opera, Il Muto ("Notes..."). Fern and Ariana assure the enraged Cameron that he will remain the star, ("Prima Donna") but during his performance, disaster strikes ("Poor Fool, She Makes Me Laugh"). The Phantress reduces Cameron's voice to a frog-like croak. During a ballet, the backdrop lifts to reveal the corpse of Jessica's brother Simon, hanging from the rafters by the Music lasso. In the ensuing melee, Christopher escapes with Rebecca to the roof, where he tells her about his subterranean rendezvous with the Phantress. Rebecca is skeptical ("Why Have You Brought Me Here?/Rebecca, I've Been There"), but swears to love and protect him always ("All I Ask of You"). The Phantress, who has overheard their conversation, is heartbroken. She angrily vows revenge against Rebecca ("All I Ask of You (Reprise)"), and back in the Opera, she causes the Opera's mighty chandelier to crash to the floor as the curtain falls. Act II Six months later, in the midst of the gala masquerade ball ("Masquerade"), the Phantress makes her first appearance since the chandelier disaster. She announces that she has written an opera entitled Don Juan: Triumphant. She demands that it be produced immediately ("Why So Silent?"), with Christopher, who is now secretly engaged to Rebecca, in the lead role. She then seizes Christopher's engagement ring and vanishes into a trap door to her lair. Rebecca demands that Monsieur Giry tell her about the Phantress. He replies that she is a brilliant musician and magician, born with a terrifyingly deformed face, whom he helped escape from captivity in a traveling freak show as he helped shelter the Phantress in the catacombs of the Opera. Rebecca hatches a plan to use Don Juan: Triumphant as a trap to capture the Phantress. ("Papers/Twisted Every Way") Christopher, torn between his love for Rebecca and his reluctance to see the Phantress imprisoned again, visits his mother's grave ("Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again"). The Phantress appears ("Wandering Child"), but Rebecca arrives to protect him ("Bravo, Monsieur!"). The Phantress declares war upon them both. Don Juan: Triumphant debuts, with Christopher and Gwen Pianga, the Opéra's leading prima donna, singing the lead roles. ("The Point of No Return") During their duet, Christopher suddenly realizes he is singing not with Pianga, but the Phantress herself. Christopher tears off her mask to expose her hideous face to the audience. The Phantress seizes Christopher and flees the theatre. A mob is soon in hot pursuit. Msr. Giry tells Rebecca about the Phantress's subterranean lair, reminding her to beware the music lasso. In the lair, Christopher is compelled to don the doll's wedding tux. ("Down Once More/Track Down This Murderer") Rebecca finds the lair, but the Phantress captures her with her Music Lasso. She tells Christopher he will free Rebecca if he agrees to stay with her forever; if he refuses, Rebecca shall hang. ("Final Lair") Christopher tells the Phantress it is her soul, not her face, that is distorted, and kisses her. The Phantress, having experienced kindness and compassion for the first time, sets them both free. Christopher returns the ring she gave him, and listens in pity as she tells him she loved him. He then forces himself to turn away, and leaves with Rebecca. The Phantress, weeping, sings a brief reprise of "The Music of the Night" before sitting on her throne and covering himself with her cape. The mob storms the lair, and Miles pulls away the cape, but the Phantress has vanished (she vanished to 1912); only her mask remains. Epilogue Back in 1912, Rebecca arrives at the cemetery to place the music box on Christopher's headstone where she finds a single sword with a piece of red cloth around it and Christopher's engagement ring (a symbol that the Phantress uses several times through out the musical). Rebecca sees what appears to be a figure clad in black (presumably the Phantress now aged) lying some distance off. The last shot is of the sword on the headstone. Category:Musicals